Venuta
by arbitraryink
Summary: Hermione rarely regrets the decisions she's made. Implied DHr, RHr. One shot. Written for the Divine the Future with Draco and Hermione Fic Exchange.


_Fic written for ballisticwits through the DMHGFicExchange 2007/2008 - Divine the Future with Draco and Hermione.  
_  
**Title:** Venuta  
**Author: **arbitraryink  
**Rating:** PG  
**Disclaimer:** All characters and concepts belonging to the Harry Potter universe are the sole property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended, nor will this project be used for profit of any kind.  
**Warning(s):** Some epilogue conformity.  
**Author/Artist Note(s):** A thousand and six thank-yous to my new beta reader Emily. I hope you didn't get sunburned while reading my work in Mexico.  
**Summary:** Hermione rarely regrets the decisions she's made. Implied DHr, RHr.

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**Venuta **

**i.**

Olivia Reading-Tedder has a necklace of sapphire and ruby. Her husband gave it to her in lieu of a wedding ring, and Olivia has never denied that she appreciates its value more than its sentiment. Her husband is, after all, dead.

The necklace is kept in a tin canister on her dressing table. The canister is the best part. It is blue and silver with a winter scene – a farm sleigh, pulled by two heavy draft horses through a snowdrift. There is a frozen lake in the background, and children with blades strapped to their feet chase each other with long wooden sticks. This is Olivia's favourite canister, and it always makes her smile.

She sometimes wishes she has children of her own, but then remembers why she doesn't and her happy spirit fades. When she starts to think these thoughts, Olivia goes out to weed the garden or beat the dirt from her entry rugs. It never occurs to her to use magic at these times, because the work keeps her mind away from the things she'd rather forget. The work also means that she can eat a piece of chocolate later, and not have to worry about an evening walk to lose the feel of it in her stomach. She doesn't like to walk in the evenings now. Since her husband died, Olivia rarely goes anywhere in the evening.

And she never wears the necklace.

**ii. **

Every Friday afternoon Hermione Granger-Weasley eats lunch with her father in Muggle Chinatown. She almost always brings with her a copy of the Wall Street Journal from the nineties. He loves to read about the stock market, even years outdated as the paper always is. Though she doesn't understand why a British dentist has this sort of interest, Hermione always humours him.

She gets the papers from the widowed woman across the department who holds a position in the Ministry of higher prestige, and so has her own cubicle. It started almost immediately after Hermione began her Ministry job. The woman had knocked politely on the wall next to her desk and said, "My late husband's cousin from New York is visiting on his way to Italy. He brought with him a stack of papers. I thought perhaps your father might like to read them."

Somehow, everyone in Wizarding Britain knows Hermione's father. She's never put much attention to it, but thinks it could be because of the headlines a year after Harry killed Voldemort. The Prophet was full of the news for a week – "Drs Granger Attacked by Straggling Supporter of You-Know-Who. Dr. Granger, f, admitted to St. Mungo's for severe Cruciatus trauma. Dr. Granger, m, to be released immediately to his daughter." He lives in an assisted living home now, and fixes the dentures of his neighbours. It isn't a livelihood, but it keeps him busy. Now, it's all he has.

Fridays are routine for Hermione. At twelve twenty she begins to clear her tiny little desk. At twelve thirty five she waits in line to Floo out of the Ministry. At twelve fifty she walks briskly into Shanghai Gardens and sits at table fourteen, across from the greying man with his nose stuck in the Wall Street Journal of April, 1991. He has read this issue before. Hermione takes it gently from his hands and instead hands him November 1998.

"How's mum?" she asks.

"What a tragedy," he answers absently, brows furrowing on the second page.

Hermione always brings the widow her leftovers.

**iii.**

The falling-out between Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson was inevitable.

"I only want what's best for you!" she had shouted, slashing her left hand through the air. "If you think this is the best you can do, then you need a – a personality transplant or something! I _know_ what you can do!"

Sometimes, Pansy thinks that shouting is the only way she can reach him.

"I would _never_ stoop so low as to marry a Weasley! I thought you knew me better than that!" is her retort to Draco's snide comment about the marriage proposal. "He has _nothing_ to offer me! If you were in your right mind, you'd know I would never, _never_ accept him."

It is clear to Pansy that Draco obviously _isn't_ in his right mind, and so she doesn't expect him to call out to her when she left. He doesn't, and she never turns back.

**iv. **

On the day of her anniversary, Olivia takes the long walk to St. Paul Cemetary. She brings the necklace with her, tucked deep into the pocket of her winter coat along with her bare hands. By the time she reaches the cemetery her fingers are stiff with cold and she curses herself for not bringing her gloves. Though the yearly anniversary visit is at the tail of November, it never snows while she's at the cemetery. She thinks it could be a sign.

"Hello, Paul," Olivia says to his tomb, and sets the necklace on the stone before scrubbing at the dirt with the pad of her thumb. She often wonders why she pays the cemetery as much as she does, as the maintenance obviously doesn't do their job. Under her feet, the grave is starting to sink, the grass around beginning to dip. There is new grass over the body beside her husband's. "It looks like Billy's wife put his name in already," Olivia says. "I think they lifted him in September. I wonder if I should put yours in soon." She knows that before long, her husband will be nothing more than a rotting box in the bottom of a crater.

Sometimes, she finds it hard to talk into the silent yard. When the silence gets uncomfortable, she touches her fingers to her lips and then to Paul's name on his stone. This is her usual farewell, and Olivia wonders if he recites it with her, knowing the words as well as she. "I will find a husband," she says. "He will be far richer than you ever were. I will wear pearls in my ears and rubies at my throat. And he will love me more than you ever did."

Not to say her husband didn't love her. As she makes her way back to her flat from the tiny cemetery on the outskirts of London, Olivia reflects on his will. The house and the land it sits on, overlooking a small rural town, is as empty as it has been for twenty-so years. She doesn't think she'll ever go back – Olivia likes the bustle of busy city life. She likes to eat in crowded lunch rooms. She likes to wink at the young men who stand on the street corners with saxophones at their lips. She likes to fall asleep to the sound of traffic.

But most of all, she likes to imagine that she makes a difference.

**v.**

Sometimes, Draco brings up the scandal just to spite her. On the rare occasion he contacts the Prophet and tells them of an important date – last month's was their first miscarriage – and the whole scenario is rehashed for the thousandth time. He never thinks twice about how it might affect her. Draco has always loved the spotlight.

**vi. **

Even after all these years, there are media folk who ask Hermione if she has a moment. They never run out of questions, and they always want answers, and she always tells them the same thing. She says, "No comment."

From the beginning, she had known that her marriage would contain little love. Passion, perhaps, doubtlessly endless lust, but very little love. Still, even now, she knows that the marriage was for the greater good. Hermione rarely regrets it.

Sometimes Harry tells her that it was simply symbolic, and sometimes Hermione believes him. Her old school friend, retired from his over-worn role of saving the world, now has a tendency to look on the bright side. The conversation always ends as he says, "Thank you," and gives her that little smile that rarely appears these days. This is when Hermione knows she had done the right thing.

When Parvati Finnegan is the Daily Prophet's unlucky delegate, she apologises to Hermione before asking the usual questions. "I wish I didn't have to do this to you," she says, but Hermione knows that everyone must eat, must clothe themselves and the families they are starting. She knows it's hard on the other end, too.

Instead of a scathing comment – her usual response to mediafolk - Hermione asks, "How much longer?" as she brushes her fingers over Parvati's belly, round with pregnancy.

"The mediwitch at St. Mungo's says only a month or two." Hermione likes the way the corners of Parvati's eyes crinkle when she smiles. "They say it's a girl. I can picture myself sending her to Hogwarts ten years from now, and it's already starting to break my heart. I don't know if I can stand to be so far away."

Hermione has children of her own now. She understands, and so she answers Parvati's questions without any bitterness. No one is the same since the war, she thinks. Everyone has changed.

When the most dreaded question finally comes, Parvati tightens her fingers around Hermione's in a gesture of support. "Are you still in love with him?" she asks, voice quiet. Hermione takes a deep breath before answering, the same as she always does.

"I love my husband," she answers, and that is the end of the interview.

**vii. **

"Why must you do this?" Hermione asks. Her face betrays her weariness – with the past, and how it continually beats at her to acknowledge it. "Just because his mother was a Muggle doesn't mean he's stupid. Your son can see what you're doing." When Draco shakes his head, she lifts a hand to her head and massages her temples. "He does. He wonders why his much esteemed father is so cruel to the few of us. He wonders what we have done to deserve your cruelty."

"I love you," Draco says simply, for once that pointed face showing no repulsion, no despondency – nothing. For once, his eyes, deep and grey, are shuttered. He reveals neither loathing nor amity. This is something Hermione is unfamiliar with, and she almost doesn't know how to handle it.

But she is older now. She has finally grown up. For the first time, she can claim to no longer be a frightened little girl who couldn't possibly understand why a grown man would want to kill an inexperienced child. For the first time, she can claim to no longer be a frightened teenager, forced at long last to test her skills in a war that would devastate the lives of everyone she knew. For the first time, she can claim to no longer be the frightened young woman guilted into a marriage with a man who, fifteen years previously, would have killed her instantly upon sight.

Hermione has finally learned to take care of herself.

"You don't know what love is."

**viii.**

There are two elderly gentlemen who sit just outside Olivia's flat, a little wicker table between them as they hunch over an intriguing game of chess. When she leaves the building she sometimes stands back and watches them, tracing mentally every feature on their faces. To Olivia, who has always dreamed of being an artist but has always considerably lacked the ability, the lines on their faces and the wrinkled caps on their heads signify a long and complete life. She is only thirty, but she often feels as if she is much older.

By the age of thirty she has been married to and widowed by the first boy to ask her on a date, has read every edition of the Wall Street Journal since August of the eighties, and has yet to meet a man that makes her knees quake when he looks at her. By her count, Olivia has missed out on many things.

Now, as Olivia smiles wistfully at the chess players, she heads into the London streets and tugs her woollen cap over her ears. Loose red curls spill out down her back – Paul had always liked her hair long, and she still doesn't have the heart to cut it. Every once in a while Olivia's hair reminds her of the pretty young mother often flying into work, frazzled beyond compare with her mouth pulled into a tight line. She sits just outside Olivia's cubicle, and Olivia likes to watch as the monotonous paperwork calms the woman's nerves. She used to see an echo of herself in that young woman, but now all she sees is loneliness.

Until, of course, two small children come racing into the department, shouting, "Mum! Mum! We brought you some lunch!" They never come on Fridays.

On this particular days as Olivia is leaving her building, she catches sight of the woman, children dancing ahead, a tall man holding the tips of her gloved fingers with his own. "Mrs Granger!" she calls, quickening her pace and holding her jacket closed with one hand. "Hermione! I've got some new papers for you," she says when she's caught her breath. "They came by delivery this morning. I didn't think there was mail on Saturdays."

"Thank you," Hermione answers, returning the genuine smile. "I'll pick them up on my way by this afternoon. I'd like you to meet my husband." Dimly, Olivia realises that their hair is the same colour, and that he has the silliest smile she's ever seen, and that there is another man standing just down the block, eyes narrowed as he glares daggers at Hermione's husband. "Olivia, please meet my husband, Ronald Weasley. Ron, this is Olivia Reading-Tedder, the head of my department at the Ministry."

As they turn toward the other man, Olivia stands and watches. Somehow she feels that there is a good reason.

She is not disappointed – barely a moment later, scathing comments and rude remarks are exchanged. Even from this distance Olivia can feel the hatred, and she doesn't move until she sees Hermione square her shoulders and push past, dragging a furious Ron behind her. But when the man turns and meets Olivia's eyes, she offers a tentative smile, and his stiff shoulders relax the tiniest bit.

It is the beginning of progress.

_**ix.**_

_"Welcome, Muggle and Wizard friends." Kingsley Shacklebolt's amplified voice rang clear across the grounds of Hogwarts. The standing Minister for Magic, until Harry Potter officially accepted or declined the title, lifted his arms to encompass the thouands gathered before him. "Today, we meet ceremoniously, celebrating a union long awaited and greatly needed."_

_Hermione wore a simple white dress, with capped sleeves and a skirt that ended at the knee. There was no lace, no train. No veil, and no flowers. Only a pair of tiny earrings and a small tan line on her wedding finger._

_"… Malfoy and Hermione Jane Granger, two of our most esteemed colleagues and friends. Please, Mr Malfoy, Miss Granger." When Draco gripped her hands, Hermione smiled at him, encouraging him onward. She was only eighteen, but she knew that she would never regret this choice._

_It seemed only moments before the tan line was covered by a ring of a new sort, one that shrunk from its large size until it fit snugly between her knuckles. Hermione stared at it, and then lifted their clasped hands for the entire audience to see. More than anything, the marriage was a sign of unity between Pureblood and Muggle-born witches and wizards for years to come. Hermione had known this when she had accepted Harry's request, and tried not to think about the look on Ron's face._

_She had always come back to Ron._

**x. **

Olivia Reading-Tedder married Draco Malfoy on December twenty-third. She was radiant in a yellow dress, her hair shining like a flame in the sun.

No one had ever said it was for love, but Draco's track record in such a regard was flimsy at the most. Love was overrated. No one believed him.

But this time, when Hermione Granger-Weasley spoke to the last media representative, she was completely honest. "I love my husband," she said quietly, and this time, no one doubted her sincerity.

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**_Comments and criticisms always welcome._**


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